ZIED
EL HENI

Background and Work

Zied El Heni worked as a journalist in Tunisia during a period of profound institutional change. After 2011, Tunisia adopted Decree-Law 115, a legal framework intended to regulate the relationship between public authorities and journalistic work while protecting freedom of expression. El Heni's professional activity included media commentary, analysis of judicial decisions, and public discussion of cases involving fellow journalists. His engagement with the case of journalist Khalifa Guesmi exemplified this work: when Guesmi faced prosecution, El Heni offered public criticism of the judicial decision in that matter through both social media and expert media interventions.

The Prosecution and Arrest

On the evening of 26 April 2026, a Sunday, a detention order was issued against El Heni outside normal judicial working hours. The case stemmed from his public commentary criticizing a judicial decision in the Khalifa Guesmi case. Rather than applying Decree-Law 115 of 2011, which governs journalistic expression in Tunisia, the prosecution invoked Article 86 of the Telecommunications Code. That provision was originally intended to protect public communications networks, not to regulate journalistic work. The reliance on Article 86 formed part of a broader pattern in which general criminal provisions — including Decree-Law 54 of 2022, with its vague references to "false information" and "rumors" — have been used to criminalize legitimate journalistic expression.

Legal Proceedings and Trial Violations

The trial hearing took place on 30 April 2026 at the Tunis courthouse. Journalists were prevented from entering the courtroom to cover the proceedings, despite the principle that hearings must be public. El Heni's daughter was denied access to the hearing. During the session, his lawyer's pleadings were interrupted. The Prosecutor of the Republic refused to meet with the President of the National Union of Tunisian Journalists, who had come to inquire about the exclusion of journalists from the courtroom. These procedural violations undermined fair trial guarantees and the right to a public hearing, protections enshrined in both Tunisian and international law.

Verdict and Sentence

On the evening of 7 May 2026, the Criminal Chamber of the Tunis Court of First Instance sentenced El Heni to one year in prison under Article 86 of the Telecommunications Code. The verdict was issued on the same day that United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk publicly called on the Tunisian authorities to end their pattern of increasing repression against civil society organizations, journalists, human rights defenders, political opponents, activists, and members of the judiciary through criminal proceedings and administrative obstacles. The timing underscored the international concern over the trajectory of civic and media freedoms in Tunisia. The prosecution of El Heni for criticizing a judicial decision raised additional concerns regarding judicial independence, as the judiciary itself became an actor in the prosecution of expression whose subject matter was a judicial practice.

Context and Pattern of Repression

El Heni's case did not occur in isolation. In the four weeks surrounding his trial and conviction, the Tunisian authorities suspended the activities of the Tunisian League for Human Rights, a recipient of the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize, and Avocats Sans Frontières. The Presidency of the Government filed a request to dissolve Al Khatt Association, which manages the independent media platform Inkyfada. Prison sentences were issued against journalists Ghassen Ben Khalifa (two years) and Sonia Dahmani (18 months), in addition to earlier convictions against journalists Mourad Zeghidi and Borhen Bsaies. These successive measures revealed an accumulating pattern of redrawing the relationship between the state, independent media, and human rights organizations through interlinked judicial, administrative, and financial pressure. In the 2026 Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index, Tunisia ranked 137 out of 180 countries.

International Standards and Regional Context

Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Tunisia is a State Party, protects criticism directed at public authorities, including the judiciary. General Comment 34 of the Human Rights Committee makes clear that imprisonment should not be a routine response to expression-related cases. El Heni's prosecution intersects with a broader pattern of judicial decisions and administrative measures in Tunisia, including the death sentence issued in October 2025 in relation to Facebook posts, prolonged detention of human rights defenders in cases related to migration and economic and social rights, and the prosecution of lawyers and judges in connection with their professional activities. Tunisia's current trajectory forms part of a wider regional pattern across the Middle East and North Africa, where general criminal provisions — including cybercrime laws, counterterrorism legislation, and broadly framed provisions on "harm to others" — are used to criminalize legitimate expression outside the specific legal protections guaranteed by constitutional and international standards for journalistic work.